Louisiana
by nyakattia
Summary: Calleigh's heart is torn Horatio or home? HC


She knew him better than he knew himself.

He knew her better than she knew herself.

Which is why in a nutshell they were perfect for each other. She balanced him out, knew when to leave him alone after a case, knew when to drag him out of the office and take him home. He grounded her, told her she was beautiful when she wasn't wearing a scrap of make-up, knew when to push, and when to pull her close.

She knew he was going to propose before he did so, and he knew that the idea of marrying him scared her for some reason. He asked her out for a quiet dinner at their favourite restaurant, intimate, classy, the restaurant he had taken her on their first date. At the last minute she got stuck in the lab with a backlog of work.

She apologised profusely and rang off. He went back to the lab.

"Knock, knock."

She turned and grinned at him, an honest grin, but there was something lurking behind her eyes. "Hey handsome. What are you doing here?"

He laughed softly, and walked around the desk. "I work here Cal. And I came to check up on you."

She smiled demurely, in a way that only a vixen can pull off. "I'm fine, just clearing this backlog."

He smiled at her, pulled her close and kissed her forehead. "Calleigh, I'm your boss. There's nothing here that couldn't wait until tomorrow."

She stiffened in his arms but didn't pull away. "Horatio."

He looked down into her eyes. "Whatever it is Cal, just tell me. I can live with almost anything, except you hiding from me."

She sighed, dropping her head. "You have a ring in your pocket, don't you."

"Yes I do." Always truthful.

"I don't know whether I can take it," she murmured into his shirt.

There was a slight pause. "May I ask why?"

She pulled away from him then, rubbing her fingers underneath her eyes. He kept his hands linked behind her back.

"Can we go home? Please?" she asked then.

He looked at her. "Okay."

She was quiet on the ride to his apartment. Recently she had spent so much time there it was more home than her condo. Besides her condo didn't have Horatio- unless he came home with her. It was getting to be that home was as much Horatio's apartment as her own. And this was a part of the problem.

Ever the gentleman, he took her jacket in the hall and sent her into the lounge to relax. A few moments later he joined her, sitting beside her on the couch rather than across from her. She wasn't a suspect to break. He pulled her close and she cuddled into his side.

"You know your bathroom is full of cosmetics?"

He smiled. "Yes." He loved having her things around him when she couldn't be.

"And there's a top of mine in the laundry."

He began to suspect something of the problem but remained quiet.

"And if we got married," her voice hitched slightly, "this would be my home."

"Well not necessarily, but yes, your home would be here, with me." He kissed her on her forehead. He wasn't the kind of man to never leave the town he was born in, but this city was his vocation.

She paused again, this time for a long while. "After I left home, I always had this dream that one day I would go back there, to Louisiana. I had this idea of living in a house like the one we had when I was a kid, with the big wrap around veranda where my children would play. Only my house would be happier."

She took a breath. "But then I met you and suddenly my dream children had red hair." He smiled and knew she was smiling too.

"And when we started dating I forgot my dream. I only wanted you, here with me forever." She paused for a long while. "And now I'm not sure which dream I want more. And which one I'm willing to give up."

Horatio looked down at her. "Calleigh, why don't you take a few days. Ah!" He said when she started to protest. "Hear me out. Go home, to Louisiana. See how you feel then."

She met his eyes, searching for something in them. "What if I want to stay?"

"Then I will know that I had you for this short time, and that will be enough. But I would make sure you were sure first." He smiled at her.

She sniffed and hugged him, hard. "I don't know what I did to deserve you, Horatio."

"Really?" he asked. "I do." He leaned down and kissed her.

She smiled. "I'm sorry Horatio, but I want to go home tonight. Will you take me?"

"Yes I will," he replied, and shivers ran down her back.

Calleigh focused on swallowing down the feeling in the pit of her stomach. It had started early this morning when she turned away from Horatio to board the plane and had only gotten worse. How sappy was it that she was missing him already?

"Calleigh!"

She looked up to find Bridget running towards her and moved forward to greet the blond. They had become friends during college and ended up working together in the PD. Friends often referred to them as being two peas in a pod. This was the first time they had seen each other in four years.

A moment later Calleigh was being hugged, and hugged her friend back in return. "Bri, it's so good to see you."

"You too," her friend infused in an accent that mimicked Calleigh's own. She looked her up and down then deep into her eyes. "You look… troubled."

Calleigh smiled brightly. "I'm fine."

Bridget raised an eyebrow. "No you aren't. But come on anyway."

Bridget talked as they made they're way through the baggage collection and towards the exit, easily filling up the silence and allowing Calleigh to respond with only half her mind. The other half couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

The doors slid open for them and the bright sunshine outside welcomed her, along with a gust of warm wind. It took a few moments for Calleigh to realise that she had stopped moving. Everything within her was calling to turn around, to go back. Back to Miami.

Back to Horatio.

She turned to Bridget who was looking at her inquisitively and smiled hesitantly. "I'm sorry Bri."

"What?" her friend asked, confused.

"I have to go." She smiled widely. "I have to go back home."

Her friend smiled as they turned around to go back to the ticket desks. Calleigh hadn't set one foot outside the terminal.

Calleigh left Bri with a promise that she would get to meet the man she was head over heals for before the wedding. Her friend had squealed with delight when she had dropped that piece of news.

The plane touched back down in Miami just before midnight, and Calleigh couldn't help but be impatient at the time it took to properly dock and open the plane doors. She was the first one out of the door, sending the bemused hostesses a grin on the way past.

She was held up again at the security station and couldn't help but bounce up and down on her heels. She sent the security guard a blinding smile as he looked through her luggage and he smiled back.

"Happy to be home ma'am?"

She nodded. "I've got to go tell the love of my life that my answer is yes."

The security guard chuckled. "Good luck." He zipped up the bag and waved her through.

"Thankyou!" Calleigh called over her shoulder and ran to find a cab to take her to the lab. Horatio, she knew, was still there completing the endless paperwork that came with his rank. And because she knew him, she knew he would be there tonight because he was missing her.

Luck was on her side that night and she managed to find a cab quickly. The streets were relatively quiet as well so the drive didn't take that long. It didn't prevent the minutes from dragging however.

Eventually she reached the lab, still open despite the late (early) hour, as the night shift and a few day sift personnel worked around the clock to solve the crimes committed during the night. Calleigh tipped the driver and nearly ran into the lab, passing the night watchman, with a cheery wave.

A light was on in Horatio's office. Despite her hurry, or perhaps because of it, her heart was pounding in her ears as she quietly climbed the stairs to his office. The door was open. She looked in…

Everything stopped at the sight of him. The man she had travelled 1700 miles to find.

"Knock knock," she said quietly, her throat dry.

He looked up and something she knew was love lit his face. "Calleigh," he stood quickly and walked around his desk. "What are you doing here?"

She couldn't help teasing him. "I could go if you want."

"No." He pulled her into a hug and she went willingly. He pressed his nose to her hair and breathed in. Were he any other man he would ask her to never leave him again. Calleigh knew this and loved him all the more for it.

"Yes."

"What?" he asked her, pulling away, his fragile heart confused over whether she was responding to the statement he had just made or the question he had asked the night before. He looked into her eyes and knew the answer.

"Yes, I will marry you Horatio," she spelled out to him, half laughing, half crying with happiness. He smiled too and pulled the ring box out from the pocket it hadn't left for two weeks. They opened the box together.

Calleigh put a hand over her mouth. "Oh, Horatio…"

He kissed her forehead and then, when she removed her hand to pick up the ring, her mouth as well. He had gotten her a single sparkling diamond, and it was the most beautiful ring in the world.

He took her hand, and the ring, and slid it on to the finger it would now inhabit. He had planned on proposing to her in the intimate setting of a classy restaurant, but here- where they had met, where he saw her every day, where he fell in love with her- this was the perfect place.

They flew out to Louisiana for their honeymoon, and planned to spend two weeks visiting small towns like the one Calleigh grew up in. On their second day they found the house. An old wooden mansion, with wrap around verandas.

What furniture there was, was falling apart, and everything was covered with dust. The next few weeks they had of their vacation leave would be spent making the house inhabitable. After a day of cleaning Horatio found his wife in the main bedroom, hot, tired and covered- like he was- with dust. She pulled him to her with a smile.

There was no bed but on that floor in the house of Calleigh's dreams they still managed to create another one.

A year later they returned to that small town, a three month old red haired girl in their arms. They had negotiated the rest of the renovations from Miami and in their absence the house had been restored to its glory. It would be rented out most of the year, but for these few weeks it was theirs.

Later a little girl would chase her brothers around the veranda, laughing with childish abandon. But every year Calleigh smiled as she packed up and they boarded the flight back to Miami. She had found her home and he was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life.


End file.
